"Our character is our will; for what we will we are."

“A necessity of my reason constrains me to believe the existence of God, because I can in no other way account for my own existence. I am either uncaused, or self-caused, or caused by a cause.”

“Praise consists in the love of God, in wonder at the goodness of God, in recognition of the gifts of God, in seeing God in all things He gives us, ay, and even in the things that He refuses to us; so as to see our whole life in the light of God; and seeing this, to bless Him, adore Him, and glorify Him.”

“No ignorance of truth is a personal sin before God, except that ignorance which springs from personal sin.”

“All human conflict is ultimately theological.”

“God knows that I would rather stand in the lowest place within the Truth, than in the highest without it. Nay, outside the Truth the higher the worse. It is only so much more opposition to Truth, so much more propagation of falsehood.”

“The softness, and the glare, and the temptations, and the licence, and the lax examples about us, are more seducing and dangerous than the winter of penal laws. They hardened the manhood of Catholic parents. The summer sun relaxes many.”